The Jewish Ethicist: Lax Lawyer

Do I have to pay first-rate prices for second-rate service?

Q. We recently hired an established lawyer to help us close on a house. Due to the pressures of other jobs, her work was so substandard that we were worried we might not make the deadline set by the sellers. We had to find a new lawyer in the middle of the process, which cost us a lot of additional money. Can we deduct the extra expense from the first lawyer's bill?

A. Every workman wants to give every customer the best possible service. Unfortunately, due to unexpected pressures and deadlines, sometimes even qualified professionals may fall short of their peak performance. When the client is disappointed, the natural question is whether it's possible to break the contract, and whether full payment is required.

Of course there are different levels of performance. There is excellent service; poor but adequate service; and there is simply not getting the job done.

If the professional is clearly not getting the job done, and time is of the essence, then Jewish law states that the negligent worker has the lower hand. Even though a worker may generally quit in the middle of a job, she may not decide to do so if it puts the employer over a barrel and involves him in a loss. And not getting the job done is tantamount to quitting.

This means that any additional costs which are due to her negligence may be deducted from her bill. In your case, your total bill would be whatever you promised the first lawyer; if the second lawyer charged less than this amount because of the head start due to the first lawyer's work, then the first lawyer would get only the remainder. (Example: first lawyer quoted $1000; second lawyer charged $600 to finish the partially begun job. The first lawyer would get only $400.)

At the other extreme, if the professional's work meets generally accepted standards, even if it is below this individual's usual level, it's hard to justify breaking the contract. In this case it would be the client who would have the lower hand. It's not the professional's fault that the client will settle for nothing less than perfection. In this case the client would have to make sure that the payment for the interrupted job is enough that it doesn't cause any loss to the professional. (Example: she quoted $1000; you fired her when she had only four hours of work left, and she usually gets $100/hour; she can recoup $400 by working those four hours, and you have to repay her $600 to make up the full amount promised.)

What you seem to describe is an intermediate situation between these two extremes: the professional's work is below accepted standards, but not necessarily inadequate to fulfill the basic commitment. You have justifiable worries that the job may not get done, but you can't really prove that the lawyer won't come through after all.

In this case, if the problem continues after the client has given the worker an explanation and a chance to correct it, the client is justified in discontinuing the worker -- but the worker deserves to get full pro-rata payment. Your lawyer is due whatever she is normally paid for the services she provided. Since her work was probably enough to get the job done, you can't make her responsible for the extra costs you encountered to obtain a truly first-rate job. (Example: she quoted $1000; she accomplished half of the work, even if in a mediocre fashion; you would owe her $500.)

The Jewish Ethicist presents some general principles of Jewish law. For specific questions and direct application, please consult a qualified Rabbi.

The Jewish Ethicist is a joint project of Aish.com and the Center for Business Ethics, Jerusalem College of Technology. To find out more about business ethics and Jewish values for the workplace, visit the JCT Center for Business Ethics website at www.besr.org.

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About the Author

Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir is Research Director at the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem (www.besr.org). He studied at Harvard, received a PhD in Economics from MIT, and rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. Prior to moving to Israel, he worked at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Reagan administration. Rabbi Dr. Meir is also a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Jerusalem College of Technology and has published several articles on business, economics and Jewish law. He is the author of the two-volume, "Meaning in Mitzvot (Feldheim), and his Aish.com columns form the basis of the "Jewish Ethicist" book (ktav.com).

I’m wondering what happened to the House of David. After the end of the Kingdom of Judah was there any memory what happened to King David’s descendants? Is there any family today which can trace its lineage to David – and whom the Messiah might descend from?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Thank you for your good question. There is no question that King David’s descendants are alive today. God promised David through Nathan the Prophet that the monarchy would never depart from his family (II Samuel 7:16). The prophets likewise foretell the ultimate coming of the Messiah, descendant of David, the “branch which will extend from the trunk of Jesse,” who will restore the Davidic dynasty and Israel’s sovereignty (Isaiah 11:1, see also Jeremiah 33:15, Ezekiel 37:25).

King David’s initial dynasty came to an end with the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile. In an earlier expulsion King Jehoiachin was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar, together with his family and several thousand of the Torah scholars and higher classes (II Kings 24:14-16). Eleven years later the Temple was destroyed. The final king of Judah, Jehoiachin’s uncle Zedekiah, was too exiled to Babylonia. He was blinded and his children were executed (II Kings 25:7).

However, Jehoiachin and his descendants did survive in exile. Babylonian cuneiform records actually attest to Jehoiachin and his family receiving food rations from the government. I Chronicles 3:17:24 likewise lists several generations of his descendants (either 9 or 15 generations, depending on the precise interpretation of the verses), which would have extended well into the Second Temple era. (One was the notable Zerubbabel, grandson of Jehoiachin, who was one of the leaders of the return to Zion and the construction the Second Temple.)

In Babylonia, the leader of the Jewish community was known as the Reish Galuta (Aramaic for “head of the exile,” called the Exilarch in English). This was a hereditary position recognized by the Babylonian government. Its bearer was generally quite wealthy and powerful, well-connected to the government and wielding much authority over Babylonian Jewry.

According to Jewish tradition, the Exilarch was a direct descendant of Jehoiachin. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 5a) understands Genesis 49:10 – Jacob’s blessing to Judah that “the staff would not be removed from Judah” – as a reference to the Exilarchs in Babylonia, “who would chastise Israel with the staff,” i.e., who exercised temporal authority over the Jewish community. It stands to reason that these descendants of Judah were descendants of David’s house, who would have naturally been the leaders of the Babylonian community, in fulfillment of God’s promise to David that authority would always rest in his descendants.

There is also a chronological work, Seder Olam Zutta (an anonymous text from the early Middle Ages), which lists 39 generations of Exilarchs beginning with Jehoiachin. One of the commentators to Chronicles, the Vilna Gaon, states that the first one was Elionai of I Chronicles 3:23.

The position of Exilarch lasted for many centuries. The Reish Galuta is mentioned quite often in the Talmud. As can be expected, some were quite learned themselves, some deferred to the rabbis for religious matters, while some, especially in the later years, fought them and their authority tooth and nail.

Exilarchs existed well into the Middle Ages, throughout the period of the early medieval scholars known as the Gaonim. The last ones known to history was Hezekiah, who was killed in 1040 by the Babylonian authorities, although he was believed to have had sons who escaped to Iberia. There are likewise later historical references to descendants of the Exilarchs, especially in northern Spain (Catelonia) and southern France (Provence).

Beyond that, there is no concrete evidence as to the whereabouts of King David’s descendants. Supposedly, the great French medieval sage Rashi (R. Shlomo Yitzchaki) traced his lineage to King David, although on a maternal line. (In addition, Rashi himself had only daughters.) The same is said of Rabbi Yehuda Loewe of Prague (the Maharal). Since Ashkenazi Jews are so interrelated, this is a tradition, however dubious today, shared by many Ashkenazi Jews.

In any event, we do not need be concerned today how the Messiah son of David will be identified. He will be a prophet, second only to Moses. God Himself will select him and appoint him to his task. And he himself, with his Divine inspiration, will resolve all other matters of Jewish lineage (Maimonides Hilchot Melachim 12:3).

Yahrtzeit of Kalonymus Z. Wissotzky, a famous Russian Jewish philanthropist who died in 1904. Wissotzky once owned the tea concession for the Czar's entire military operation. Since the Czar's soldiers numbered in the millions and tea drinking was a daily Russian custom, this concession made Wissotzky very rich. One day, Wissotzky was approached by the World Zionist Organization to begin a tea business in Israel. He laughed at this preposterous idea: the market was small, the Turkish bureaucracy was strict, and tea leaves from India were too costly to import. Jewish leaders persisted, and Wissotzky started a small tea company in Israel. After his death, the tea company passed to his heirs. Then in 1917, the communists swept to power in Russia, seizing all of the Wissotzky company's assets. The only business left in their possession was the small tea company in Israel. The family fled Russia, built the Israeli business, and today Wissotzky is a leading brand of tea in Israel, with exports to countries worldwide -- including Russia.

Building by youth may be destructive, while when elders dismantle, it is constructive (Nedarim 40a).

It seems paradoxical, but it is true. We make the most important decisions of our lives when we are young and inexperienced, and our maximum wisdom comes at an age when our lives are essentially behind us, and no decisions of great moment remain to be made.

While the solution to this mystery eludes us, the facts are evident, and we would be wise to adapt to them. When we are young and inexperienced, we can ask our elders for their opinion and then benefit from their wisdom. When their advice does not coincide with what we think is best, we would do ourselves a great service if we deferred to their counsel.

It may not be popular to champion this concept. Although we have emerged from the era of the `60s, when accepting the opinion of anyone over thirty was anathema, the attitude of dismissing older people as antiquated and obsolete has-beens who lack the omniscience of computerized intelligence still lingers on.

Those who refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. We would do well to swallow our youthful pride and benefit from the teachings of the school of experience.

Today I shall...

seek advice from my elders and give more serious consideration to deferring to their advice when it conflicts with my desires.

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